


Intimate Exposure

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan)



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Fluff, Gift Exchange, Gift Fic, Intimacy, M/M, Photography, because it sounds like a 90s Lifetime original movie, but I can't do that without all the feelings, it's really just that I'm terrible at titles, just a little bit to make it spicy, some smut, the title makes me giggle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:41:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24198394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni
Summary: A picture says one thousand words, but even Alex would argue that's not enough to capture Henry. Still he tries, and reluctantly shares his collection of cleverly taken photographs with his boyfriend. Intrigued and charmed, Henry offers to let Alex take all the photos he wants - and it's yet another thing they can claim for themselves.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 24
Kudos: 185
Collections: RWRB Spring Fling Exchange





	Intimate Exposure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Smellerbee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smellerbee/gifts).



> This is a gift fic for **smellerbee** on the Red, White & Royal Blue server Gift Exchange! <3 It is also my very first RWRB fic ever, so I really hope that I did them justice. This was originally intended to be a rival models AU, and I still plan on writing that, but then I wrote Alex with a camera in his hand, and it was game over. I'm very happy to have been able to participate in this event, and thank you for reading!! Hope you like it!

“If I didn’t know any better, Alex, I would accuse you of being some kind of stalker.”

Henry looked through the photos in his hand slowly, tucking one behind the stack to see the next. Alex didn’t need to be looking over his shoulder to know what each one of them was. He’d thumbed through them enough times to have them all memorized. He paused in his pacing next to the bed.

“See? This is why I didn’t want to show them to you—”

He reached over to try and pluck them from Henry’s hands, but the prince deftly weaved to the side. 

“Oh stop, I’m only teasing. I want to see the rest.” He almost asked when they were taken, but upon flipping the topmost one over, he saw a date scrawled in Alex’s furtive handwriting in the top corner. That particular one had been from his visit during the inaugural address when Ellen Claremont took office for the second term. He was sound asleep in Alex’s bed, clutching a pillow, mouth opened slightly. He was horrified to consider that he might have been snoring. 

Alex huffed, glancing at the photo. “You were snoring that morning, by the way. You’re lucky I didn’t take a video.” 

“You’re a dick,” Henry stated with his usual fondness, but he still didn’t relinquish the photos. They were all ones where he was either unaware of Alex’s presence or sleeping, and he couldn’t believe he’d been so daft to miss Alex with a camera. Though it would have been easy to miss that when he was sandwiched among Nora, June, and Pez, one of them mussing up his hair. A glance out of the corner of his eye caught Alex smiling. He finally finished looking through the stack and handed them back to Alex to be tucked back into the drawer of his stately bedside table.

“I took a photography class as one of my college electives,” he said with a shrug, starting to pace again. Henry had never met anyone, save perhaps Bea, who had so much frenetic energy about them. Alex always had to be thinking, planning, doing, traits that Henry appreciated even when he was thinking of the best ways to make him  _ still _ . 

“I’m surprised you were able to develop these discreetly,” Henry said, rubbing his fingertips together. He found himself wishing he were still holding the photographs. Now that he’d had some time to ruminate on it, they had been like holding little pieces of Alex’s heart, and he wanted that texture on his skin again nearly as badly as he wanted his mouth on Alex’s or his hand in his favorite place at the small of Alex’s back. 

“That’s because I made a half-assed dark room in one of the utility rooms on the second floor. I think Nora’s the only one that knows about it right now. It’s a pain in the ass, honestly. I fucked up so many rolls of film, it’s not even funny, but…” Alex trailed off, sitting on the edge of his bed so that Henry’s thigh was pressed up against Alex’s side. It still felt like a live wire when they touched; Henry never tired of it. 

“But what, babe?” Henry reached out and pushed his fingers into Alex’s curls, loving how Alex leaned into his touch. 

Alex let out a laugh. “Pretty hard to hack photographs in my bedroom drawer, right? And the battery can’t die while I’m looking at ‘em either.” His smile had that boyish charm to it, the kind that made Henry weak for all that it was unguarded and his to see. He felt a very immediate pang, but also a spread of warmth. Truthfully, now that they were  _ out _ , neither of them really cared who knew. President Claremont’s opponent had done a very good job of making sure the world had known about them, and their decision to claim it had been the right one. 

It also meant that the world wanted to know everything about them, see their romance as the next trending hashtag. They were as much in the public eye as they ever were, more so now. And while Henry took pride in the “iconic power couple” they had become, there were some times where he revisited that dream of being no one of importance, left to fall in love with a beautiful boy who’d been on the cover of  _ Teen Vogue _ (”twice,” the inner voice belonging to Alex reminded him often.) There was something undeniably charming about discovering that Alex wanted to look at him, not through saved pictures on his phone or Snapchat memories or on Twitter. But in delicate, old-fashioned photographs he’d developed himself out of the public eye. Henry leaned forward, the fingers at the back of Alex’s head firm now as he pulled them together for a kiss. 

Normally, he left it to Alex to think of the adventurous ideas. Henry still caught his knees getting weak at the thought of Alex literally storming his castle to make sure he knew without a doubt that he was loved. But once he started thinking about his boyfriend behind the lens of a camera, taking pictures of  _ him _ , the thought wouldn’t leave his mind. He’d been groomed and primed to shine when he heard a shutter click, but the way he shone for the paparazzi and the way he shone for Alex were two totally different things. 

“Do you have any spare film, love?” he murmured into Alex’s ear, licking at the lobe just so he could feel the resulting shiver against him. 

“Yeah, I bought a ton when it was an Amazon deal of the day, so it’s like— wait, why?” There was a suspicious lilt to his tone. The kind he took with Nora and June whenever they asked probing questions about things he didn’t want to be any of their business. 

“I thought you might want to photograph me while I was awake, like a proper stalker.” The tips of Henry’s ears had gone red; he could feel the heat crawling down the back of his neck, along his jaw and up into his cheeks. It was astounding how much he really wanted this, and now that he’d thrown it out to the universe, he braced for the worst. Sometimes, old habits die hard. 

Alex nudged him with his elbow, half-heartedly since it was clear he didn’t want to pull away from Henry’s arms or his mouth. “You don’t have to. I know how much you actually hate getting your picture taken. I just wanted to, y’know, show those to you.” 

“There are a lot of things I would do for you that I’d prefer to deny the rest of the world,” Henry told him resolutely. “Besides, you’ve made it very apparent that you enjoy it, so why only make you resort to doing it behind my back. Consider it like being a modern painter.”

“Pfft, please. You don’t want to see me paint anything. It’s a complete mess. Not even paint-by-number.”

Henry wondered if Alex would continue to be stubborn and decided some cheating was in order. He opened his legs, scooting closer until he’d bracketed Alex’s hips, pressing himself up to his back. He ran his lips along the back of his neck, breathing in Alex’s conditioner and a hint of his cologne. Though his intent was to win Alex over, he couldn’t help groaning, rocking a little. His voice had gone a little husky around the edges when he murmured. “Then photograph me, Alex. If you cannot have a portrait of my regal visage above your fireplace instead of the founding fathers, then keep many smaller versions where you can reach them at night. I’ll never be forgotten if I’m always at your fingertips.”

“Jesus, mother Mary,” Alex huffed. “God, all right, your royal pain in the ass,  _ fuck _ .”

Henry nuzzled his nose against the warmth of Alex’s cheek, laughing in a soft gust against his throat that provoked another shiver. Alex put his hands on Henry’s arms around his chest and dropped his head back to his shoulder. 

“You are a menace,” he accused breathlessly. 

Henry wondered what other names Alex would call him if he let one hand fall between his legs and claimed it to be a slip. But he resisted. “You say the sweetest things, darling. How would you like me?”

/

In spite of the teasing, Alex had been far too excited at the prospect of photographing Henry to fully concentrate on the desire to have him until they couldn’t move. Henry had accepted this as their natural state of being, since it took merely the smallest thing to get them going. After an intense make-out session and just enough of being handsy to quell the burn for a bit, Alex left Henry perched on the edge of the bed. He watched as Alex leaned up on his toes to fetch a box from the top shelf of his armoire. Much as Henry was loath to admit it, chinos did look fabulous on his ass. He could have offered to help reach the box, but not only would Alex have fussed, it would have ruined the view. 

The camera looked sleek, dark and expensive in Alex’s capable hands. Henry found it absurd that he could draw comparisons of intent from just the look of it. It seemed nothing like the monstrous, brightly flashing ones he was used to seeing at the promenade or from his motorcade. Those had hideously large and complex lenses and hoods and flares that made it feel like a single snapshot was like taking a cross-section of himself to put under a microscope called ‘the public’. No, Alex’s looked friendly, fitting the shape of his fingers, looped warmly around his neck with a canvas strap. The anxiety Henry felt at agreeing to really do this started to ebb, and he found himself more eager than he ever would have expected. 

“I bought it with all the bells and whistles,” Alex was saying when Henry dragged himself out of his own head. 

Alex smiled at him, as if he’d known Henry had gone somewhere for a moment, glad he was back. For all his blustering like an uncaring prick, Henry had come to adore that Alex was enormously considerate of his ability to slip in and out of himself. It had been a coping mechanism far too long to disappear overnight. But they were fewer and shorter when he was with Alex. Being with Alex constantly made him want to root himself in the present moment. 

“Were there a lot?” He knew next to nothing about cameras.

“About twelve lenses and God knows how many flash things. I took pictures of birds first. I could see all the way to the street like high-powered binoculars. It was so weird. But I kind of like it like this, simple, y’know? One of these days I’ll find one that’s really old and figure out how it works.” 

“FSOTUS loses self in long-lost art of vintage bird photography.” 

“Prince of England spotted in collection of boudoir shots in the Presidential library,” Alex laughed in rebuttal, watching Henry’s face heat up again. 

It had become a game, quoting obnoxious headlines to one another. Their lives were constantly drifting from one headline to the next, so they claimed this for themselves too. Things the world would never see or know. He hated how good Alex was at turning the game on him. Loved it more.

Alex took no time at all to load up the film and check all the settings. Henry found his heart racing for no good reason. Or perhaps several good reasons. Finally, Alex let the camera rest against his chest and came back over to the bed, cupping Henry’s face in his hands, stealing a kiss. This close, the excitement rolling off Alex was palpable, adding to the fluttering in Henry’s chest. His eyes were bright, eager, like a kid at Christmas. To be the focus of such delight caught Henry off guard, and he wanted to kiss Alex senseless for doing this to him damn near every time he looked at him. But this felt like even higher stakes, a bigger secret, and despite all the secrets Henry had kept in his life, this one seemed harmlessly thrilling. Safer than a Snapchat, more secure than an email, everything they needed right now. 

“However you want me, love,” he said against Alex’s lips. 

“It can’t be  _ exactly _ however I want you,” Alex huffed, pulling back. He had a mischievous smirk on his lips.

“Whatever do you mean?” 

“You didn’t bring your polo gear.” 

“Scoundrel!” Henry scoffed, giving him a playful shove. “Listen, if you behave yourself, that might accidentally fall into my suitcase next time I visit.” 

“Or I could accidentally drop the camera in my carry-on. You just never know.” Alex straightened, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “All right, let’s try this…”

_ This _ became what may very well have been hours of Alex’s hands on Henry, tipping his chin up, moving his hands, adjusting clothing. At first the click-hum of the camera was jarring to Henry, inspiring his reflex of looking for danger and plastering a fake smile on his face. Alex was infinitely patient, reminding him each time it happened that he was safe, locked away in Alex’s room, where nothing could touch them. The flashes became a prelude to Alex’s hands on him, kisses fluttering against his skin, warm touches to keep his focus on Alex. He barely minded when he found his shirt untucked from his pants, or his collar wide open. His hair was most certainly mussed, and he lay back against the pillows that smelled like the First Son, actually content with being put to film just for Alex. 

“I’m out of film, babe,” Alex said right before pressing a kiss to Henry’s lips.

Henry wound his hand into the front of his shirt, preventing him from slipping away too easily. He felt wrecked, exposed even though he still had all of his clothes on. They were in disarray from Alex’s eager hands and deliberate posing. Henry loved all of it, and if this was what it was like being on the other end of the lens, he could only imagine how Alex must have felt when he snuck those pictures of him sleeping. How he must feel now, having Henry ask for this thing he wanted so badly.

“Will you show me the darkroom?” he asked, biting at Alex’s lower lip. 

“Before I get to have you?” Alex pouted, but there was no doubt all that fire was back in his eyes again. He was thrilled to have been asked, and Henry swallowed down his own desire. It would be worth waiting to see what these new pictures looked like in Alex’s hands. “Yeah, of course, fine. We’re going.”

/

The two of them barely fit into the little room, and Henry found it hard to breathe. Not because of the lack of space, or certainly not because it reminded him of being shoved into a closet with Alex on top of him. But because he’d never been in a darkroom before, and he’d never seen the shape of Alex’s face in red light before. It sculpted shadows along his jaw and dusted his dark curls with a mysterious glow, and just knowing that this was how he’d be immortalized for Alex was something of a thrill. 

“You can’t open the door til we’re done,” Alex told him sternly, sliding the camera from around his neck.

Henry resisted asking about what everything was, instead watching Alex’s hands, thinking about how they’d moved him so effortlessly all over the bed. Those hands had put him where Alex had wanted to see him, those hands were delicate on the film and the camera alike. Henry couldn’t wait any longer. Even though he hadn’t asked, Alex was already murmuring about caustic chemicals and a precarious process. The sound of his voice, low and secretive, was maddening. It was as if he had been conditioned to respond to unknown hiding places and hushed words. 

Henry sank to his knees, trying to find a good spot for himself so that Alex could continue working. As if coming out of a reverie, Alex froze and blinked down at him. 

“Here? Seriously?”

“Anywhere,” Henry said, looking up at him. The shadows were a little harsher from down there, and he couldn’t tell if Alex was genuinely upset or just bitching because it was habit. 

“I have to be careful with some of this stuff or they won’t come out. Or I might melt my flesh off. You know, roll the dice.” 

“Can you be?” It was Henry’s way of asking, his fingers paused with the button of Alec’s khakis popped, the zipper just waiting to be tugged. Against Henry’s wrist, he could tell Alex was very into this, but all it would take was one word, and he would wait not so patiently to get back up to his room.

Alex licked his lips. It was downright scandalous tinged in red and black, stakes raised, and God did he love this stupid, romantic idiot. He could scarcely believe his fate or luck or whatever terrible name they were calling it this week. Henry raised a brow, but he was pretty sure the shadows obscured the wordless inquiry, so he tugged the zipper halfway. 

“Alex?”

“Yeah, fuck, I can’t say no, just—” He didn’t finish, but he made a point to stop looking down, instead busying himself with whatever he needed to do to develop photographs.

Henry went slowly at first, peeling away clothing, taking him out and palming him gently. The familiar string of bilingual cusses rolled off Alex’s tongue, and that did Henry in. He swallowed Alex down and closed his eyes, losing himself to one of the things he loved the most about pleasing Alex. It was a little different without hands in his hair, and Alex’s movements were more restrained than Henry ever remembered them. But the sounds were the same, the taste of him and the weight on his tongue as he worked. Henry took pride in how Alex’s knees trembled near his shoulders, and his hands slid up to hold his thighs. Might not be much use if he actually collapsed, but Henry liked to be prepared. And he liked making Alex feel good. 

He was careful when he finished too, gently rearranging Alex back into his clothes and moving out of the way before getting to his feet. What greeted him was a clothesline of hanging photographs, like something out of an old movie. They went two deep, and Henry swept his gaze over all of them while he dragged the back of his hand over his mouth. Alex finally braced himself on the edge of his workspace to catch his breath. It was still difficult for Henry to see, but his shape in the pictures was unmistakable. He looked like art, and that made  _ him _ weak in the knees. 

“Gotta…” Alex stuttered and blew his curls off his forehead. It was only half-successful, since sweat had stuck some of them to his brow. “Gotta wash…my hands.” 

He staggered over to the sink while Henry continued to ponder the photos, wishing he could touch them, to take them into the light and really see them. 

“How long must we wait?”

“Long enough for me to return the favor, you little shit.”

Before Henry could say anything else, Alex was already down on the floor. Henry could never tell if it was because they’d been rivals for so long or just something inherent in Alex’s nature, but he’d never been with a more reciprocal partner. Henry leaned back as Alex freed him, careful not to knock anything over while he felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude mixed with hunger. If the way Alex took him into his mouth was any indication, they were both starving. He tried not to make too much noise, but when he squeezed his eyes shut and rocked his hips, he couldn’t be too sure how successful he was, not even after it was all over. Alex could have taken him down in five minutes or an hour, Henry really wasn’t sure. The darkroom was their world, and time bent inside of it for them, like a fantasy wardrobe that took them to another place no one would find them. When he thought he wouldn’t tumble over, he let go of the counter and straightened. 

Alex was grinning as he collected the photos from their little lines, like bringing in the fresh laundry. He cupped them gently. “You ready to go?”

“Yes, of course.” Henry could walk, probably. 

/

It was funny how desensitized Henry had become about his own face. He’d been photographed from birth; his face, his fake hobbies, his even more fake dates, all plastered in every form of media out there. If Henry looked at a photo of himself before Alex, he had worked hard to convince himself it was someone else’s life and it didn’t matter. Even the first few Instagram photos, the crux of their entire friendship farce, had that feel of something Henry wanted to pretend didn’t matter. But as things had grown, he’d learned to love not only how he looked with Alex sharing the frame, but also how much more human he looked to himself without him. That was the power of honesty, he supposed, it cast a new light on everything. 

He thought he had been prepared for the photos they snuck back to Alex’s room. But he wasn’t. 

“This is…how you see me,” he said, looking over the evidence spread over the duvet. 

It felt strange to say out loud, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if it was Alex behind the lens, whatever came out of that darkroom would forever be the world as Alex saw it. To be the focus of that? Well, it sparked a feeling Henry could barely contain inside him. It swelled between his ribs, it was under his skin, and it shook the core of him. The young man in these photos, laid out only hours before on this very same bed, looked flushed and alive and like he existed only for the flash of this camera. It was a stark difference to being forced to endure the flashes of every other camera in the world. He  _ wanted _ this. 

“Yeah, babe, you look fuckin’ amazing.” Alex grinned his lopsided 3AM grin at him, unguarded and wild, willing to give Henry a piece of himself at the slightest provocation. No matter what Henry might think about giving himself over to these photos, Alex had given just as much back by telling him about it in the first place. How long had Alex wanted to take such candid pictures of him? How long had it eaten away at him and how many coffees had Alex tried to drink to drown it. “I mean, you always look amazing, but like here…here you look…” 

Henry tore his gaze away from the photos and looked Alex right in the eyes. “Like I’m yours?” he suggested helpfully.

He watched Alex swallow, the way his throat worked, and Henry wanted to cover it all in kisses. 

“Y-yeah. Like mine.” 

Henry reached out and scooped up the photos with all the gentleness he could muster when he wanted to kiss Alex this badly. He deposited them on the bedside table with care, then climbed into Alex’s lap, chuckling at the ‘oof’ sound Alex always made when he did that. He loved when Alex had to look up at him when he put his hands on Henry’s hips. Henry kissed him, long and deep. 

“Say it again, love.” 

“What?” Alex looked dazed, then his eyes widened. “Oh.  _ Oh _ .” 

Henry felt every part of his body turn its attention to Alex as his expression went from stunned to eager. 

“Your highness,” he began. Henry’s insides turned molten. “You. Are mine.”

“Yes,” Henry agreed without hesitation, though his voice did shake. “I am.”


End file.
